A Case Study in Media Relations Success

14/09/13 11:13

This is the fourth instalment in a series on media relations measurement.

In the this part of my conversation with Wilma Mathews, ABC, author of Media Relations: A Practical Guide for Communicators, she provided an example of a media relations initiative that demonstrates the importance to linking behavioral outcomes to media relations inputs.

A staff writer at Arizona State University received an assignment from the archaeology department to write a news release to promote an upcoming lecture: a local attorney, as an amateur Egyptologist, was only the second person to go into an Egyptian tomb.

Wilma told me this writer often takes what many would consider to be an unusual approach to media relations. “She knows her media, so she never does follow up calls to the reporters she sends material to,” Wilma explained. “She knows whether they’re the right ones to get the release.”

The communicator got two hits from her release. One was in a calendar listing in the local newspaper. The other was to a reporter who likes to write human interest stories.

“Without any prompting, the reporter turned this story into a front page of the Sunday leisure section, including two color photographs over three-fourths of a page,” Wilma says. “A lecture that would normally bring in 25 brought in almost 200 people.”

There is no AVE for this program. And the circulation numbers would be small by most media relations measurement standards, because there was only one newspaper’s circulation to include.

However, in many ways, this example represents the tried and true in media relations, and the importance of measurement over evaluation. To be successful, it’s important to understand the needs of reporters and only target those journalists or media outlets who would have an interest in your program, your product, your service or your candidate.

After going through that process, if your media list ends up being only five outlets — but they’re the right five outlets — you can achieve success with what would be considered to be an extremely low AVE, if any AVE at all.

“It’s taken almost as a fact that if you have a million impressions there’s an assumption that a million people saw it and read it,” Wilma said. “You can make numbers do anything you want. But the real bottom line test is: Did your audience do what you intended them to do?

"You can have all the impressions in the world, but if nobody showed up for that dinner to raise money — and your job was to help improve attendance at that dinner — then you’re just not doing your job.”